The Guardian has a story detailing the firing of Christopher Krebs, who served as the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa)
President Trump made the announcement on Twitter on Tuesday, saying Krebs "has been terminated" and that his recent statement defending the security of the election was "highly inaccurate".
CISA last week released a statement refuting claims of widespread voter fraud. "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history," the statement read. "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
Krebs, is a former Microsoft executive, and was appointed by President Trump after allegations of Russian interference with the 2016 election.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:34PM (208 children)
From the perspective of the naked emperor:
Cool thing about science types, they tend to agree more and more over time, whereas dogmatics have kind of been frothing about for centuries.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:58PM (134 children)
Ain't it funny how all us tech types went from saying electronic voting was so flawed in the US that every result should be assumed to be fraud to saying it's secure enough to blindly trust without a paper trail over the course of four years?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:02PM (29 children)
I don't know where you're pulling that from. I know this is a "True Scottman" but, us "real" tech types who know how bad software is, have never advocated for anything but paper voting.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:21PM (25 children)
I take it you aren't old enough to remember the past decade or so of tech history then? Google up Diebold.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:34PM (24 children)
"Diebold" is not "us tech types"; don't move the goalposts... Your claim was that "us tech types" changed our minds.
I know of Diebold and I know how bad their software (and practices) are. I believe it even was "us tech types" calling attention to that.
(Score: -1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:44PM (23 children)
Which is exactly what I said, dumbass. We went from intense scrutiny and screaming about security flaws in Diebold machines to completely trusting all voting machines like our history had never happened.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:55PM (8 children)
Go back to my initial response to your post:
What I dispute is your claim that "us tech types" are (currently) arguing in favor of trusting, blindly or otherwise, computerized voting machines. My counterclaim is that "us tech types" have always, and continue to, argue /against/ using these types of machines and that we argue in favor of paper-based voting.
I don't know if it's me or if you're trying to be deliberately obtuse, but I have a hunch based on your previous response...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:30PM
Buzzard is the only one here who voted on a paper-trail free system.
Maybe instead of bitching about it on a website he could vote for those 'tech types' who want to fix the problem.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:46PM (1 child)
The buzztard has a well-known habit of being obtuse. Whether it is deliberate or not is anyone's guess. In any case it is not you. Just so you know.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:28PM
Obtuse? I thought it was obstinate. Or obstreperous. Or Obstetric. Obstructive? Ostragoon? Or possibly Obstragastric. We mailed in our electronic votes? What they heck is he even talking about? Mail-in ballots are on paper. Provisional ballots are on paper. Absentee ballots are paper. TMB is stuck in the past.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:19PM (1 child)
Maybe I'm misreading TMB's first post, but I read it as sarcasm. Either way, Poe's Law is in full effect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:40PM
Every single time I think TMB is trolling he claims to be serious, and frequently his serious posts look like trolling. I think he is more influenced by propaganda and conspiracy crap than he thinks. I haven't seen a single person say voting machines are trustworthy, so he is probably mixing in some of his amger about the election.
Bonus, he will just deny any support of Trump and NOTHING ever upsets him; even when many things obviously upset him. He might be almost entirely detached from his own emotional states.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:01AM (2 children)
I'm not the one being obtuse here. You need to read the rest of the responses. You're very much in the minority, even of this community, if you dare criticize the security of electronic voting.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @05:26PM (1 child)
I think you're missing the point that we don't have electronic voting. It's always counted by hand as well. Fix your own state if they can't get basic shit right.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:00AM
Are you fucking stupid? Pieces of paper with ink on them are not especially difficult to create at will.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:16PM (13 children)
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/pa-new-voting-machines-for-2020-with-paper-trails-20200101.html [inquirer.com]
So it seems they did it fucking right, but then you bring up something else for what reason exactly??
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:06AM (12 children)
You think? Unless they give you one for recounts and one to keep, with a matching nonce so fuckery can be proven to be fuckery, you still have zero accountability. If you can't prove your specific vote was changed, you can't prove shit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:37AM (1 child)
The people that keep on insisting that there is no fraud keep on failing to get the point. I suspect it's intentional. The point is the following.
I do not hold the burden to prove fraud. The government holds the burden to prove legitimacy. They hold that burden because I pay taxes. They have completely and utterly failed to meet that burden. Anything short of an end-to-end auditable voting system fails to meet the burden. If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.
I want more to be done to prove to me that there was no fraud. A lot more. I do not see the burden being met. Not even close. I do not hold the burden to prove fraud. They hold the burden to prove legitimacy. They haven't met that burden. At all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @05:31PM
The government doesn't run the elections, citizens do! The poll workers are volunteers (although they do receive nominal pay in some places), often retirees and students. Go work an election, or just go vote and look at how it's operated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:38AM (9 children)
With a secret ballot you can't prove your vote was tampered with at all. If the electronic machines produce a paper backup that the voter reviews before submitting both electronic and paper ballots then you have a reasonable method for manually rechecking the votes. If a voter can check that his/her vote was counted exactly as cast then you no longer have a secret ballot and are back to a situation where vote selling and intimidation practices are feasible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:55AM (1 child)
You're an idiot. The current mail in ballot allows vote buying to happen. I can simply show someone my ballot and show myself mailing it in.
Please, stop intentionally acting stupid like we're too dumb to get this. We get it. You're being dishonest and we very clearly see your dishonesty. It's obvious.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @05:40PM
How do you hide any significant vote buying scheme in 2020? You're being ridiculous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @03:17AM (2 children)
Anyways alleged issues with an end to end auditable voting system when compared to what we have now can be found here in the comments
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/11/06/1027247 [soylentnews.org]
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07, @03:14PM (#1074136)
Since the (paid?) trolls will keep on bringing it up I figure I'll just link back to the response.
Also
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/11/09/1823255 [soylentnews.org]
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11, @03:05AM (#1076017)
Which pretty much repeats the same thing.
Much of this is redundant. Yet the trolls keep on bringing up the same arguments. "Vote buying is possible". Not any more possible than our current system of mail in ballots.
There should be a list of registered voters that voted so we can tally the number of votes we should expect. Then there should be a list of votes with my vote on that list. The question is how do we prove that all registered voters on the list exist and are still alive during the elections? Perhaps enough information to uniquely identify each voter if necessary? Maybe everyone's first and last name along with a voterID (the voterID can be listed online) that's associated to an offline database that also has more information on that person like DOB, address, contact info, perhaps info on a few relatives or associates that voted, etc... so that certain non-anonymous people (ie: perhaps anyone without a criminal background willing to physically check in and have their independent audits logged such as the press) can investigate various listings.
But something better than what we currently have. What we currently have is garbage. It's faith based. I want something proof based.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @09:44PM (1 child)
Are you sure there isn't? Voting in-person, where I am, involves signing my entry on a list of registered voters. Mail-in requires name, signature, and address, so the same thing can be done. I think provisional ballots require the same information.
More non-anonymous votes makes it more possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @11:27PM
This is silly logic.
There is no such thing as 'more possible' or 'less possible'. It's either possible or it's not. If the option is available at all then it's possible regardless of how it's possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @03:21AM (2 children)
"are back to a situation where vote selling and intimidation practices are feasible."
So then you agree that we should do away with mail in ballots since mail in ballots allow me to simply show my ballot to someone else before submitting, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @09:32PM (1 child)
Yes, mail-in ballots are no longer secret. Removing them and only allowing in-person voting would be more secure. There's a bit of a difference between a few mail-in ballots and every ballot though. Also the current pandemic makes having everyone vote in-person a bit risky though, unless there are more voting locations or a longer voting window(more days to vote). And there's the issue of people that are eligible to vote but physically cannot get to a polling station. Personally I always did in-person voting until this November.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @11:32PM
"There's a bit of a difference between a few mail-in ballots and every ballot though."
Uhm ... no. It's either possible and those that want to sell their votes can do it or it's not possible and they can't. There is no middle ground here.
If you claim vote buying is a potential problem then any possibility for its existence is a potential problem. To claim otherwise is a non-sequitur.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:04AM
Yes, you can. It is possible to create a nonce for each ballot that cannot be reversed to identify anyone. Yes, even with a sampling as small as the US population.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:15PM (2 children)
And the states where all the tech types actually live implemented paper trails!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:06AM (1 child)
Not ones that meant anything.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @04:21AM
Widdle babee twowing a tantwum? Aww widdle babee, is all otay don't wowry.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:03PM (27 children)
Where are there no paper trails? What do you think they're counting in Ga right now, 5 million computer systems?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:22PM (22 children)
Weren't any in TN for sure. And no option of a paper ballot unless you filed for an absentee one.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:09PM (19 children)
Here in NY, we went from the nice old lever/mechanical machines, straight to paper ballots combined with optical scanning. After scanning, the paper ballot drops into the ballot box below (where it is saved in case of the need for a recount). The changeover was put off as long as possible, I think the decision was made when there weren't enough spare parts and technicians left to maintain the mechanical machines.
If your state used a Diebold (etc) hackable system, and/or doesn't have true paper backup, then you shouldn't be whining here on SN, you should be harassing your representatives about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:18PM (2 children)
Bbbu... fraud?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:44PM (1 child)
Then 2016 is invalidated as it had less paper ballots, and Clinton gets 2024 by default =)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:02PM
w007
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:11PM
An open source optical scanner could be used to randomly spot check that the results matched to some small error.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:14PM (9 children)
uhm ... telling our representatives that we won't vote for them if they don't fix the voting system that got them elected. Ironic. When the thing that needs fixing is voting how can we use voting to get it fixed?
What we need is an end to End-to-end auditable voting system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_systems [wikipedia.org]
The burden is not on me to prove that there was fraud. The burden is on the system to prove there wasn't. They hold this burden because I pay taxes.
Of course legislature is never going to get such a system passed, the current system is what got them in power. It needs to be passed through a ballot initiative. It needs to be voted on. We need to vote for a better voting system - we need to vote to fix voting. Again, the irony.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:25PM (4 children)
What's even more telling is that's exactly how we did it in every single Blue state except Jersey.
It almost seems like on particular party has no interest in fixing these systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @11:26PM (3 children)
Wait, what state has an End-to-end auditable voting system. I consider anything less to be broken. If you really have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:42AM (2 children)
Once a vote can be linked to a specific voter, and proved to be so after the vote, you open up the voter to being bribed or intimidated into voting a certain way. That's why the US switched to secret ballot in the first place.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @04:20AM (1 child)
So then you agree that we should do away with mail in ballots since mail in ballots allow me to simply show my ballot to someone else before submitting, right?
You can't have it both ways. Either vote buying is an issue and we should do away with mail in ballots. Or it's not an issue and we should create a proof based voting system.
I am entitled to proof based voting system. I am entitled to it because I pay taxes. A government that doesn't provide for one is a fraud.
and your statement isn't really true regardless. The above response is assuming it is true which it's not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 21 2020, @11:15PM
Let me jump in here. When buying a vote. How much would I have to pay for someone to bother voting my way and how do I find one who would not snitch? Those are issues when trying to buy votes. The price for one single vote is likely very high and to make a dent one would need to buy a lot and not get snitched on at the same time. In addition a vote seller could take offers from many vote buyers and send a fake photo to everyone one of them, submitting your own vote for real and cash in. If we'ree going to talk about buying votes, let's look at the logistic nightmare and risks of doing so.
Where I live the vote counts in the local places are so low that we all know who gave that one vote who sticks out.. it's usually me.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday November 20 2020, @07:02AM (3 children)
How does anyone prove a negative? If you want to make claims then the burden of proof is definitely on you to provide evidence that supports those claims. You do have a legal system where you live, don't you?
I claim that you do not understand - and I offer your previous statements to support this claim. That's how it normally works. And time and time again in this election we find that despite all of the claims there is no evidence.
But no matter - the rest of the world has stocked up on popcorn and is waiting for the civil unrest to really kick off. You people need to get your act together and begin cooperating to sort out the mess you are now finding yourself in - no longer is the USA viewed as the paragon of democracy and able to provide leadership to the world. Military might can only get you so far - any further and you just become the bully.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @09:29AM (2 children)
Claiming that there is no fraud is a positive. You claim that there was no fraud. Prove it. Give me an end-to-end auditable voting system. Give me a proof based voting system. Not the faith based on we currently have.
If I apply for a job an employer may want positive proof that I am not a criminal. So they do a background check.
If I apply for a credit card the CC company may want positive proof that I have good credit. Or a mortgage lender may want positive proof that I have a good credit score or they may want positive proof of my income. I have to provide for it.
Landlords may want positive proof of a potential tenant's history.
I'm asking for positive proof. An end-to-end auditable voting system can provide for it. I am entitled to positive proof. I explained why. Deliver.
What we currently have is a faith based system that provides zero proof. I want a proof based system. Systems that provide proof are possible. Deliver. If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @09:45AM (1 child)
Imagine if I tried to take a tax deduction for an expense and I didn't keep the receipt and the IRS asked for receipts and I didn't provide for one and said prove that I didn't buy this item?
The IRS wants to see the receipt on my end and they want to see the receipt on the end of the entity I bought the item from.
When I work I submit my taxes to the government. The government also collects information about my taxes from my employer. They match the two. They audit what I tell them.
Likewise when I submit my state taxes I also have to submit to the state information about my federal income. The federal government also submits this information to the state and the state audits the two and compares.
The argument that the government shouldn't be able to audit me because that would be requiring them to prove a negative doesn't hold up.
The problem with our current voting system is that it's not auditable. It's faith based. This isn't rocket science. Accountants understand this. They don't blindly trust us. Tax collectors (ie: the IRS) understand this. They understand what auditable means. Why can't you? Are you just being dense and stupid. Again, this isn't that difficult. I want an auditable system. Why is that so hard to understand? Why should I just blindly trust the system? I shouldn't. I don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @09:51AM
and when I say it needs to be auditable I mean that it needs to be auditable by ME. Not just by some stranger on T.V. or some useless 'journalist'. But by everyone which includes me.
Just in case someone tried to come up with some smart aleck response.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:21PM (3 children)
What you describe is like where I vote. (flyover) Fill out paper ballot. Drop ballot into machine. You (and poll watchers) can visibly see that your ballot was counted and that the total ballots counted display increments by one, as the ballot drops into a box that collects the ballots.
Counting by machine makes vote counts rapid and efficient. Also can make recounts rapid and efficient.
Use of paper, human readable ballots makes manual recounts possible.
Ideally, one type of paper ballot could be counted by optical counting machines from multiple vendors. Then some easy reality checks become possible:
* Grab subset of ballots, and count them on two different brands, expecting same totals.
* Before counting them on the 2nd machine, first shuffle the deck, expect same totals.
* Swap counting machines with other precincts, expect same totals.
* Run stack of ballots through machine 1, shuffle and cut the deck, run the two halves through machines 2 and 3. Expect totals of 1 to match sum of totals of 2 and 3.
Other possible quick checks could be done on machines.
There is no excuse for voting machines that do not count human readable paper ballots that were manually filled in by the voter. The ballot is what is sacred. The machine is there simply to make counting more efficient.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:27PM (2 children)
Same as CO, it's a great system that has the benefits of both worlds.
It's a shame that folk like Buzzard in TN won't elect anyone who wants to fix their paperless voting system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:33PM
TN? That is how Rand Paul stays in office?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday November 20 2020, @12:22AM
Careful guys, Trump may fire you too. That's not what he wants to hear, reality be damn'd. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Thursday November 19 2020, @09:38PM
Been using the optical scanner system in Minnesota for years. Fill out your paper ballot, and then run it into the scanner.
The absentee ballot I used this year was virtually identical to past year's ballots.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:33PM (1 child)
Sounds like almost everywhere was fully converted this election [govtech.com].
Hmmm, it is interesting almost all of those states are red states. So what do you guys do with all those millions of dollars that were sent to you to fix your voting processes anyway?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:09AM
Massively overpay their brother-in-law's company to do something for the state, of course.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by hemocyanin on Thursday November 19 2020, @09:28PM (3 children)
Paper trails only matter if the paper can be subjected to forensic testing. For example, it is interesting that so many mail-in ballots, presumably placed in envelopes, had no creases (*). In one affidavit, 500 in a row all with perfectly filled bubbles (**).
* https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.283580/gov.uscourts.gand.283580.6.20.pdf [courtlistener.com]
** https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.283580/gov.uscourts.gand.283580.6.9.pdf [courtlistener.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday November 20 2020, @12:31AM (1 child)
A Trump-appointed judge has rejected that nonsense. [lawandcrime.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday November 20 2020, @02:22AM
Based on standing and other excuses regarding some agreement about mail-in ballots from 8 mos ago. Not on the substance.
You would think with evidence of duplicated ballots though, somebody somewhere would have the guts to have them examined. The box numbers they're in is listed in one of the affidavits.
It is interesting though that in America, we do everything we can to make elections less secure, less verifiable, and when testable claims of fraud are made, evade examining the evidence.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:15AM
They need to be printed twice, with a matching nonce on the printouts. Doesn't have to be personally identifiable, properly created hashes would work just fine. You just need to be able to check online afterwards to make sure your shit got registered and didn't get changed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Subsentient on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:12PM (39 children)
Fraud happens every election, but it's usually small scale and not significant. I believe CISA when they say this was the most secure in history. That does not mean it was entirely secure! It means that people gurgling about voting machines has finally gotten enough attention that a handful of counties cleaned them up.
I've looked at all the sources, all the news outlets I can find, I've kept an open mind.
All evidence points to the GOP idiotically following the Orange Fuhrer's tirades. I just don't see the evidence.
Uzzard, look at the courts, how they're throwing out every case, including republican judges.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:23PM (25 children)
They might be the most secure since we started doing electronic voting, they're most assuredly not the most secure in history though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:33PM (16 children)
And you have actual evidence of this? Have you brought your evidence to the attention of Trump's legal team? If not, why not? Or, are you just bullshitting yet again?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:49PM (15 children)
Yes. Look up the process for registering by mail and voting by mail in California if you want definitive proof of insecurity. Mostly I'm concerned by the fact that we completely stopped all scrutiny and criticism of voting machines by the tech community overnight.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:49PM (3 children)
If you know of a specific issue, state it; then people will investigate and prove it wrong (because it is wrong). Just throwing out nebulous baseless claims isn't fooling anybody.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:27PM
But you've set a catch-22. Without an investigation, there could be mistakes or fraud, but nobody will know. Is that an okay system?
I'd advocate for everyone using paper ballots, and counting 3 times, or as many as necessary to achieve reasonable convergence. "Reasonable" meaning: if the margin or error is greater than the difference between the totals, you need to count again.
This ain't rocket science. Or maybe it is and should be done by rocket scientists.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:58PM
Here's a *specific* case of *attempted* election fraud. [latimes.com]
Even if the scheme had succeeded (which it didn't, because appropriate controls were in place to detect such efforts), it was nowhere near enough to change the outcome of just a *city* election, let alone a state-wide election.
Election fraud in the US is hard to do in a way that could actually affect the outcome of an election -- even a local election.
If you take even a cursory look into how elections in the US work, that becomes obvious.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:17AM
I just did. Read the procedures for registering and voting by mail in CA and tell me they're not absolutely designed to protect voter fraud.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:17PM (8 children)
California has paper trails.
The state you live in does not.
California wins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:31PM (4 children)
Maybe he is extrapolating the insecurity of voting in his own state to how the rest of the country's voting works.
Also, non white skinned people actually do get to have a fair say in the government. Just like everyone else. Yes, really. And it is not unfair for it to be that way. I know some people will be horribly offended about this. But there it is.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1, Troll) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:41PM (3 children)
The rightwing filter would never allow a story about how all the Blue states fixed their voting systems while all the Red states left them insecure into his bubble.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:03PM (2 children)
That looks to me like the republicans have loyalty tests, ever since the tea party idiots introduced the term "RINO" to describe anyone who didn't fit their particular narrative.
If the rest of the republican party had had any real ethics, they would have rejected the Sarah Palin types, or at least debated with them, instead of rolling over and allowing them free reign.
Now they're in the situation that they have to argue black is white, because they have allowed their partry to be taken over by Trump and he has no regard for reality.
The Mighty Buzzard might ask himself why, if this voter fraud thing is so real, can the Trump campaign cannot find a reputable law firm to argue their case in court?
Instead they have fools like this working for them, and even worse, Rudy Giuliani. [politico.com]
I don't think TMB is stupid, but I do think he has wound up invested in "his team" and won't be disloyal by questioning any of their narrative.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @10:08PM (1 child)
The most disturbing thing is the "Black is White, might makes right" actions they are taking while in control of things like Supreme Court nominations.
I know the Ds pulled out the nuclear option first, but the Rs are going beyond retribution.
What kind of mechanism is required to de-Gerrymander districts? The R hold on power is so tenuous at this point, if they lost that one advantage it seems that they would fall down a deep hole they might never climb out of.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @05:54PM
Gerrymandering can be prevented by having districts set by a committee of citizens, like Michigan is now doing (a form of direct democracy). Apportionment reform could make gerrymandering less relevant by greatly increasing the number of districts and diluting the power of partisan voting blocs.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:18AM (2 children)
Dude, I could have voted in CA this time around. As many times as I wanted to take out post office boxes for. I could even shave that down some if I used folks with the same last names.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @05:05AM (1 child)
I was wrong, you are the Rudy Giulani of SN.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:07AM
You're wrong on the issue as well. You should look into fixing that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:48PM (1 child)
Just blind uninformed hatred towards "commiefornia." Here I thought you were a libertarian above all that partisan hackery /s
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:10AM
I give you facts you were unaware of, you hate and deny said facts without being able to refute them in any way, and you think I'm the ignorant one?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:25PM (7 children)
Most secure in history certainly depends on your scope.
If you're comparing to "pre-electronic" elections like in the 1970s, I'm going to go with more secure today. Bags of ballots can "accidentally" get forgotten in storage rooms, and the relatively higher cost of recounts meant that they didn't happen as much back then. Also, checksum type data was less used back then (total expected ballots as counted by multiple sources of information) and information relayed by telephone was lower fidelity than today's digital photo/video communication, so, I'm still going with more secure today.
If you're going back to the 13 colonies and elections where results were carried by horseback courier, I'm going to go with more secure today. I hope you understand why?
If you're talking about an election that took place in a single room with a hundred or so people in personal attendance, sure - that might have conceivably hit 100% secure.
If you're talking about the clusterfuck of 2000, 2020 sure seems like a better run circus than that.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:24AM (6 children)
You ever code online billing systems? I've been doing it for over twenty years and I will absolutely never put anything but a single purpose prepaid card across the Internet, because I know precisely how many things can go horribly wrong. Electronic voting systems are nowhere near as secure and far more important.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2020, @01:45AM (4 children)
No, but I applied for work at a payments processing software company in Gainesville, Florida. Didn't get the jerb because I made 2x as much as the software manager, who himself made more than any given two of his code monkeys - not that he didn't think they were worth more, just that their owners refused to pay more. Hardly surprising the state of that "art." And, I'm not a prince or anything, just a code monkey for medical device startups running on academic grants at the time.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:19AM (3 children)
I didn't say the code was bad in comparison to all the other code out there. I'd never say it was bad compared to any code involved in healthcare. I said it's not secure enough to trust my money to.
Know why? Random idiots.
In online billing you have every random idiot who coded a piece of software that runs on any of the routers or boxes involved in a transaction; from your computer, to the bank's servers, to the nameserver you query for the A/AAAA record, to your home router that never gets software updates. In voting you have poll workers and those overseeing them.
All of the above should be assumed to be entirely crooked and doing their best to commit fraud for whoever you voted against. Placing blind trust in someone who self-selected to count other people's ballots is foolish in the extreme.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:31PM (2 children)
Well, I guess my point was: assuming that shop was typical (they did POS embedded card reader stuff), they had massive turnover in their programmers - in large part because they were paying them less than half of what I was paying zero experience code monkeys for medical device work.
There was a medical billing / office management shop around there that I interviewed with that had a similar situation - average tenure of a programmer was about 3 months, 1 year was rare, and if they stuck around longer they usually had to be fired because of their lack of ability. Being out of work at the time, I offered to work for whatever they wanted to pay, but I think they were afraid to bring in someone who actually stuck with a programming job for 2 to 10 years, they said "you'd just leave when you got a better offer" - well, yeah, or you could keep me if you think I'm worth paying for, but with an average turnover of 3 months what are the odds I'll find my next job even that fast?
Medical device software has its problems, but nowhere near on the scale of billing / finance related stuff. Life safety seems to get slightly better attention than financial safety.
The whole political / representative government system suffers from this problem. If I were immortal, I might try to do something about it. As it is, worrying too much about things you are essentially powerless to fix is even more foolish, IMO. Look for the maximal ROI: voting is low investment, and relatively high impact compared to devoting your life to "fixing the system."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:15PM (1 child)
Most billing/finance code problems are at the admin or individual business level and caused by one person or a small group refusing to learn or follow best practices. Trying to reinvent the wheel or not taking threats seriously enough are the major causes of bad finance code.
It's rarely the code that causes the problem though. Mostly it's everyone having to deal with a bare minimum of two untrusted participants: the CC processing company and the site admin. Which is a large part of why we pawn our part off on the CC processing companies here at SN. They have plenty of time and manpower to get their shat right where we don't.
I still advise folks to never put anything but a single use prepaid card across the Internet though. Nobody's perfect and that money cost you quite a lot of your life, so expose only as much of it as you have to to risk.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:42PM
Oh, I finally did get a job at a high turnover shop once - they did video security, had a whole custom system coded over 5 years by a team of 4 programmers. Speaking of best practices, after I had been there about a week I asked: "how do I build this from source?" "Oh, it's all on this server here, ssh in and follow the scripts." "Great, um, when is the last time that system was backed up?" Crickets, followed by lame evasion. I'm barely 5 days on the job so I shrug and go back to my desk. Just after I start walking away there's a flurry of activity and a few minutes later an announcement that the build server is going down for about an hour. Since my work was just interrupted I casually walk over and ask the IT guy who just showed up how's it going? "Oh, great, we're just taking a VM image of this box that holds the only copy of our build system for 40% of the company revenue, on a spinning hard drive."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2020, @02:34AM
Courses for horses, the attack surfaces and use cases are completely different. Audit trail needs are different. Could they be better? Sure can. So can medical device security, the insecurity of implantable pacemaker interfaces could literally shock you to death, but it has not happened yet - not because it is impossible to make a more secure pacemaker interface, but because the current designs serve the current users as optimally as the designers were able to at the time they were designed.
Needs change, the need for secure interfaces only grows more. We've known enough about theoretical security to make these systems "practically unbreakable" since the 1970s, had the hardware to do it in trivial money, time and power since the mid 1990s - what we're still juggling is usability vs ultimate security. Who do you trust to hold the keys? Why do you trust them?
Our OR based devices have a relatively low attack profile, little value in their stored information, marginal health risk if they are compromised, biggest concern in all our risk analyses is "delay of surgery" which is far above trivial, but hardly the brass ring for hackers. We're actually more of a target for bot-net recruitment than hacking our intended functions, and the bot-nets have far softer targets of opportunity in the hospital networks.
One of the big advantages our OR devices have is that they are powered down and/or disconnected from the network 99% of the time, a lot like voting machines.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by PaperNoodle on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:32PM (12 children)
Partly because the requested relief became moot in some cases. In MI and PA the courts threw out lawsuits asking a halt to counting while observers and challengers were not present. When it finally got to the court the count was finished meaning the lawsuit was moot because the relief sought was moot.
Other lawsuits were from citizens or GOP state party. It's been hard to keep up but not all the lawsuits thrown out are from Trump's campaign.
What is more concerning is the judgment from the PA supreme court. "Observing" doesn't specify distance so being in the same room with binoculars is "observing" the count process. You are in the same room and can see people counting 150ft away but that fulfills the "observing" state law requirement. That does not instill confidence.
B3
(Score: 3, Informative) by helel on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:59PM (11 children)
Which is it, they couldn't observer or the observers just weren't allowed as close as they'd like?
Also, for the record, the distance was 15 feet [nbcnews.com]. Close enough to verify nothing fishy is going on, not close enough to read the personal details of the voters and compile a hit list.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by PaperNoodle on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:13PM (10 children)
We are dealing with multiple states and multiple activities. I think MI were kicking out observers while PA pushed them across the room. It is not and either or question. But the theme is the same.
Is 15ft enough to verify a signature? How do you challenge any ballot from that kind of distance? How many tables were farther away? The nearest might be 15ft but each observer was assigned multiple tables. In GA for instance it's something like 10 to 1 tables to observers at a distance that cannot possibly see what is on each ballot.
B3
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:26PM (1 child)
Also if the observer blinks then for a fraction of time NOBODY is observing. This is an intolerable injustice that can only be remedied by disenfranchising millions of voters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:07PM
They also made them wear blinders. Alex Jones said so.
(Score: 4, Informative) by helel on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:31PM (7 children)
They are there to observer the count, not the ballots. Their job is to verify the person verifying the signature, not to verify the signature themselves.
And in Michigan "over 100 Republican challengers remained inside throughout the counting [soylentnews.org]." Yes, the Trump campaign wanted more but they already had more republican observers than there were counters in the room.
(Score: 1, Troll) by PaperNoodle on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:33PM (6 children)
And challenge a ballot. How do you challenge a signature at 15 ft?
B3
(Score: 2, Informative) by helel on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:40PM (4 children)
That is not something they are allowed to do. Their job is to observer and raise legal challenges if they see anything amiss. They didn't see anything shifty go down so instead they tried to claim that the mere fact that they were between 6 and 15 feet away (depending on time and place) was itself grounds to challenge the tally.
You're confusing Pensilvania with Michigan where there were only two Republican observers leaning over the shoulder of each election official and where the observers are allowed to challenge individual ballots.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by PaperNoodle on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:06PM (2 children)
One of the MI lawsuit. https://www.greatlakesjc.org/cases/costantino_v_detroit/ [greatlakesjc.org]
It doesn't make claim to distances. Could be wrong only glanced through it.
PA is filed in federal court. At least the one I am aware claim equal protection violations for treating mail in ballots differently in parts of the state because they treated the observers different for curing. As it also coincides with the PA Supreme court ruling. I am not sure all the specifics as it's hard to parse. But am happy to be wrong. If you can provide the judgements or defendant claims countering the distance claims.
B3
(Score: 5, Informative) by helel on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:27PM (1 child)
Here's the judges response to that case [scribd.com]. The tl;dr looks to be that the plaintive's evidence of wrongdoing is vague lacking time/date and place where the fraud took place and the persons involved. The plaintive also was not present for important portions of the proceedings they claim to have witnessed and other acts they claim to be fraudulent are in fact normal parts of the election process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:18PM
Time to throw some of these false accusers in jail. Tampering with our democracy is not ok.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @09:00PM
How can you be expected to see irregularities without being able to see any details of what's going on? All you can see from 15ft away is that there's no burn bin for "wrong" votes. Although, that is far from the only way to influence the count. Making sure that the signatures match, the ballots and envelopes aren't tampered with requires being able to see the details.
By the way, the counting system should be set up so that the envelopes are sorted into valid/invalid prior to being opened. The opening of the ballot could be done by an observable machine in batches (with matching in/out counts). Then the ballots scanned and hand counted. Each of these steps could be witnessed with no risk to voter privacy. So there's absolutely no reason to prevent observers from seeing the details of what the counters are doing.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:18PM
How do you verify a signature? Does your signature remain consistent over the years? Mine isn't consistent signature to signature. The only thing consistent about my signature is that it is unreadable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:30PM
Our elections here in the USA do have paper trails. Pay attention, dumbass!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:26PM (12 children)
Except there is a paper trail [ballotpedia.org] in just about every state. In fact, the only state that Biden won that *doesn't* have a paper trail is New Jersey.
Every other state *without* a paper trail was won by Trump. So, by your logic, we should cry fraud wherever there is no paper trail. That would be:
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
New Jersey
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Note that no one is claiming that there was fraud in those states.
Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin *all* have paper trails.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:27PM (2 children)
Too late - he's wandered off into the fact-free zone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:56PM (1 child)
Actually, he has been in the "fact-free zone" as long as I can remember him posting here. Just saying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:38PM
That is what the "right-wing" soylent filter is for. Keeps reality from popping his bubble. Welcome to the desert of the fact-free zone!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:34PM (1 child)
The list of states you point out that do NOT use paper ballots is amusing. Those are the states I would LEAST trust to run fair elections. And Trump won in those.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:51PM
It wouldn't be 2020 without a MASSIVE dose of Republican hypocrisy thrown in the mix!
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:23PM
Au contraire, mon frere ...
If Trump won, there was most assuredly fraud.
However, it was probably on Facepalm, not on the ballot paper.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:27PM (2 children)
Arizona does have a paper trail, but it's been made useless. After the issues in 2000, they removed the ability to request a recount and set the automatic recount trigger so low that it is essentially impossible to trigger (difference of 200 votes or 0.01% of votes, whichever is smaller). So while we do have paper ballots here, they will only be read by the machines.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @11:56PM (1 child)
What *evidence* do you have that suggests there were significant problems with Arizona's votes?
I mean that quite seriously. If *anyone* has evidence of any fraud or vote tampering, it should be fully investigated.
And I'm sure Dan Patrick [theguardian.com] would be quite generous if you can provide some. At $25,000/tip that leads to a conviction, you could clean up.
What's more, as someone who voted for Biden, I'm all about free and fair elections.
If there's evidence for fraud, let's get it all out in the open. It's not like voter fraud never happens. In fact, the Heritage Foundation [heritage.org] has documented 1300 cases of voter fraud since 1982.
Since 1982, many more than a billion votes have been cast. [statista.com]
Let's take the low end of that and work the numbers. 1300 documented cases of fraud/1,000,000,000 votes = 0.0000013% voter fraud.
That's not nearly enough to affect *any* election. But let's say the "problem" is much, much worse. Let's say there are *ten times* more cases of fraud than have been documented.
That would 13,000 documented cases of fraud/1,000,000,000 votes = 0.000013%. That's still far less than could affect an election, unless of course all or most of those were in a single small-medium sized town during a single election.
And since those were cases all over the country over almost 40 years, even ten times the fraud we know about certainly wouldn't impact any state-wide or even local races.
Even more, there isn't just one election, or even one election system. There are, in fact, 3,143 separate elections in the US on election day. Each with an election system managed by folks in each of 3,143 counties in the US.
And in each county representatives from all parties that have candidates on the ballot are able to monitor both voting and counting of votes.
The self-interest of the political parties and the processes that are in place make any sort of widespread election fraud, and certainly anything widespread enough to actually impact the outcome of an election would require complicity from hundreds, if not thousands of people, many of whom would have a vested interest in having the election go a different way.
But don't believe me. And don't believe the folks who claim there is rampant fraud.
Go ahead and work it out yourself. I recommend starting by looking at the election system and processes in your own county. That should give you a pretty good baseline.
And as you learn about how elections *actually* work, I think you'll come to the same conclusion I did.
And even if you don't, at least you'll have a better understanding of how our elections actually work. That's not a bad thing is it?
(Score: 2) by slinches on Friday November 20 2020, @04:40PM
The whole point is that fraud can easily be accomplished without leaving evidence or only easily dismissible evidence. So, the whole "where's the evidence?" thing is a strawman. You know there's no evidence because the systems are set up in a way that makes it nearly impossible to prove whether voter fraud occurred. This is particularly true with mail-in ballots. They are out in public being handled by unsupervised individuals at multiple steps and even in the best case scenario, there's no way to ensure that only the intended voter can fill out that ballot.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:29AM (2 children)
One printed receipt is not a paper trail, it's a comforting fiction.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @11:43AM (1 child)
How's comforting fiction been treating you lately?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:21AM
Pretty good. Been rereading this Carrie Vaughn series about a werewolf named Kitty.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:12PM (1 child)
Most states replaced electronic voting machines that do not create a paper trail.
There are only 8 states left that use paperless voting and take a wild guess at what color 88% of those states are. [thehill.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:33AM
Yes, you get a paper ballot printed out. Nobody could ever figure out how to get around that. I mean they'd have to have something that would magically put whatever they wanted it to on a piece of paper.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by sjames on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:46PM (16 children)
Perhaps that's because the concerns were addressed. What's really funny is when the outbound Republican thinks he actually won and that any appearance otherwise is because the elections run by Republicans in a state with a Republican governor using equipment selected by a Republican and with Republicans watching the whole process was biased towards Democrats. (See Georgia)
Also that the same Republican seemed mostly afraid of the absentee ballots that are submitted as marks on paper just like in the old days.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:32AM (15 children)
I don't give a rat's ass what Trump thinks, I care that we have no way whatsoever to verify that our vote got counted and that it got counted as we cast it. I trust poll workers very little and computers not at all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by sjames on Friday November 20 2020, @02:18AM (14 children)
If you don't trust the computers and you don't trust the poll workers, there is literally no way to trust the polling no matter how it's done short of you personally overseeing every ballot cast and then counting the results personally. Unfortunately, the President's term will be over before you can finish.
Of course, after that, you might be the only person who actually trusts the results, so each person will need to make approximately 260 million copies of their ballot witnessed by all 260 million people....
At the same time, I am glad most states have been phasing the unauditable machines out. I would be happier still with the old paper ballots marked in ink such as the absentee ballot I cast.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:25AM (13 children)
Sure there is. I take it you're not a programmer. We've long since solved untrusted parties dealing with critical data. And yet we don't use fucking any of those lessons on something this critical. Not only that but the Dems go way the hell out of their way to make fraud as convenient and untraceable as possible.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:36AM (12 children)
I am a programmer. I am a programmer who has worked enough with emulation and OS intercepts to realize that most of the systems dealing with un-trusted parties just shove the trust under a rug where it's not so obvious.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:44AM (11 children)
There are some idiots who do not use what works != It is not an already solved problem
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:21AM (10 children)
So what do you have in mind to make voting and tallying absolutely trustworthy in spite of untrustworthy computers and untrustworthy poll workers?
And what leads you to trust that that system has been implemented correctly and without subversion?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:29PM (9 children)
Being able to verify that your own vote was counted and was correctly counted would be a good start. That's dead simple to do without coupling your identity to your vote. You create a single-use identifier for each ballot cast. Not a crypto hash, a 32bit number would do just fine. You print it out on two copies of the paper ballot, one for recounts and one for the voter. The only metadata saved for that number should be the polling place id, a timestamp with a intentionally poor resolution (fifteen minutes, an hour, whatever's necessary to not be able to tell whose vote it is by the timestamp), and the votes themselves. Then you upload all of the collected data to a torrent file or similar for anyone to do a recount any time they like.
That's just me spitballing off the top of my head. I could come up with something quite a lot better if I actually gave it any real thought.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:20PM (8 children)
Then marvel as kooks come out of the woodwork for the next 4 years with fake ballots that they claim were 'lost'.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 23 2020, @12:20PM (7 children)
Kind of difficult to do if you can check that your vote was accurately registered as soon as you cast it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday November 23 2020, @06:41PM (6 children)
How in the world does that prevent someone from fraudulently claiming that they cast a ballot that wasn't counted?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 24 2020, @02:19PM (5 children)
Same way you prove email came from the person it says it did. Cryptographic signature on the receipt.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday November 24 2020, @08:20PM (4 children)
You've passed the point where many qualified voters no longer understand how it works and so have to trust the downloaded software.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 25 2020, @03:26AM (3 children)
Verifying the validity of a ballot was never going to rest on the voter's shoulders. They already know if it's valid or not since they cast it. The signature is so someone else can verify that it's not a forgery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 25 2020, @06:45AM (2 children)
So the voters are expected to trust those verifiers who actually understand how it works and Swear to God it DOES work?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 28 2020, @11:57AM (1 child)
Nope. And if you have to ask that, please never get into security of any sort beyond the Mall variety.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday November 28 2020, @06:48PM
So you'll need to come up with something they actually understand that actually allows them to not need to trust those machines and people.
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Friday November 20 2020, @01:43AM
All this because droopy Trumpy has electile dysfunction. Sad.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Friday November 20 2020, @04:22AM
Buzzard, did you know that the only state that doesn't have paper ballots or voter-verifiable paper trails is Louisiana?
Every. Other. State. uses some form of paper ballots or paper printout trails for their voting.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 21 2020, @01:33AM
Ain't it funny how Bruce Schneier, maybe one of the top two or three most respected and trusted security researchers in the world, just reposted a paper written by Ron Rivest, who literally invented modern cryptography, and three other highly respected security researchers from MIT, about how electronic voting is "a spectacularly dumb idea for a whole bunch of reasons" [schneier.com]. But, why listen to them when you could listen to right-wing nutcases!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:05PM (17 children)
See no evil must mean there is no evil.
Why are democrats fighting basic levels of election security? Observers and challengers denied. Signature verification not happening.
And still, voting software/hardware issues in multiple counties across multiple states that had to hand recount to "fix" the numbers using the same system that was warned about by democrats just recently [washingtonexaminer.com].
All issues cutting one way in states that all stopped counting at the same time and then miraculously dump ballots in percentages that would make Venezuela, North Korea, or Iran proud. In a few cities and States that are all having problems, breaking all historical norms and common sense (Biden more popular than Obama for blacks in only a choice select few cities having these problems) coupled with statistical anomalies that need closer examination.
Where there is smoke there is fire. I believe that is what I heard to justify Mueller that had less evidence.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Subsentient on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:16PM (15 children)
We're not. Those allegations have already been thoroughly debunked by many sources, but unfortunately modern conservatives only listen to the handful of far-right networks that feed them the "alternative facts" that they want to hear.
If the allegations were credible, I'd be furious and worried about fraud too. But, they're not, at least not from anything I can find anywhere.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:21PM (8 children)
Hundreds of sworn affidavits alleging problems countered by government affidavits saying no problems exist. Nothing to see here trust us.
I have not seen democrats fighting the accuracy of the affidavits in the courts. I have seen a couple judges place more trust in the government's account.
That is not debunked. That's trusting the government officials promising nothing is wrong when people are saying the government is doing something wrong.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:38PM (6 children)
Saying something is wrong is one thing. Actually providing evidence is quite another. Courts insist on evidence. Otherwise I could just claim in court that you murdered someone. Where is my evidence? My claim is the evidence. Would you really be comfortable with being convicted of murder on such "evidence"?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:57PM (4 children)
I don't think you understand what you are saying. Witnesses are evidence used in every case. It sounds like you are looking for some masked bandit [nypost.com] caught red handed with fraudulent ballots manning the vote count machine on video with a badge name.
Let's put our thinking caps on. Without witnesses how do you prove election fraud? When observers and challengers are denied access to the count, how do you know what happened behind closed doors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:28PM
Except they were not.
It's about the law and evidence.
See here for actual information:
https://electionlawblog.org/ [electionlawblog.org]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:52PM
Let's look at the quality of the complaints. How about the one where it was claimed that poll watchers were kept out where later the attorney for the plaintiff sheepishly admitted that a non-zero number of poll watchers were present for the counting...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:01PM (1 child)
Except I am not saying I witnessed anything. I am just claiming that you murdered someone. So, tell us: why did you murder that guy? I hope they give you the death penalty for it. It would serve you right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:40PM
Is this about Glenn Beck, again? Some people were saying that . . .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:35PM
You're logic-leaping over INVESTIGATION.
It doesn't go from suspicion to death penalty. You get evidence FROM an investigation, which fortunately some people will do based on reasonable suspicion.
(Score: 3, Funny) by sjames on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:48PM
If I produce an affidavit claiming that the moon really is made of green cheese and that the craters are actually the result of moon mice, will you take it at it's word?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:28PM (1 child)
You're clearly not attending Evangelical churches in small midwestern towns. Plenty of "credible sources," "good people" are so convinced of their "proof" that they're charismatically influencing their community members to believe right along with them.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:03AM
Frankly, as a Christian I find this very disturbing and disheartening; unfortunately, I find it also very believable that this is going on. I thought we Christians were supposed to stand up for the truth as best we understood it. Instead, it looks like many Christians have completely given themselves over to tribalism and various half-baked conspiracy theories. We should be better than this. I am so ashamed.
(Score: 1, Troll) by unauthorized on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:59PM (3 children)
I distinctly remember the pro Democrat side on SN being quite adamant in their belief of the now thoughtfully debunked Russian hackers conspiracy theory. Something something throwing stones in a glass house.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:24PM (1 child)
More alt-facts! Russian hackers were already proven, and Mueller specifically said he was limited from investigating Trump directly and that Trumo was NOT exonerated. Then Barr releases a memo saying Trump was totally exonerated. You can go look these things up, so how many more lies are you willing to swallow?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:41PM
How many more lies are you willing to regurgitate?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @09:45PM
Stop changing the subject. And changing history. It was never about *haxers* in the actual election process. It was about Russian interference in the elections and it fucking did work and is working. Americans are so fucking stupid, they believe the idiotic propaganda spewed by these foreign agents. Then again, Faux News and related did similar damage to American democracy. You actually may want to read things and get informed. (And read the entire wikipedia entry, not just my quote.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections [wikipedia.org]
And the only reason why Trump didn't end up colluding with Russia was because he's too fucking stupid to collude. He tried and failed. But considering how he handled everything else, that's not surprising. He's an embarrassment not just to America but the world.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:17PM
Because they feel they currently have the upper hand.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:07PM (53 children)
One thing that makes his comment not pass the sniff test is the huge number of mail-in ballots. Even if you think everything was 100% on the up and up, the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots precludes any possibility whatsoever of this being the "most secure in American history." It simply was, and remains, a gaping security flaw due to further diminished ability to determine that a ballot is who it says it his from. This issue was compounded exponentially by states printing and preemptively mailing ballots, even when not requested. For instance a member of my family received a ballot for the former resident of his house, and I expect this was fairly widespread.
So it *may* be the case that this election was conducted 100% on the up and up, but it was almost certainly the least secure election in American history, by a very wide margin.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:20PM (51 children)
IDK where you vote, where I vote the ID check at in person voting is much less rigorously verified than a mailing address.
Anyone can walk in with a fake I.D. and when they walk out, traceability is over.
Faking a mailing address is harder, easier to follow up on, riskier for perpetrators of fraud. Maybe somebody in the household orders a ballot, intercepts it, and mails it in without the knowledge of the voter - but only if the voter doesn't care about the election enough to vote.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:28PM (50 children)
You consider having a mailing address rigorous? You can register with anyone's name, by mail, and then vote, by mail, in California so long as you have the last four of their SSN and a PO box somewhere in the state. There's no requirement for any form of proof you are who you say you are, that who you say you are is a California resident, or that who you say you are is even alive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:37PM (49 children)
How many cases of mail-in voting fraud have been actually proven, prosecuted, convicted? In a country of hundreds of millions the numbers will never be zero, but they are trivial.
Put another way: I have no doubt in my mind that IF any any non-trivial fraud happened against Trump, we would have seen the proof by now. Not allegations and affidavits that are quickly rescinded, actual proof.
This exercise by the Trump team has done more to boost my confidence in the integrity of our election processes than anything else in the last 50 years.
In 2000, I felt that Bush stole it, but it was so close as to be a virtual tie. 2020 doesn't seem to be anywhere close to tie territory.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:52PM (18 children)
How do you propose someone go about proving it? Anonymous ballots are anonymous. You can prove precisely nothing by looking at the ballots, which was probably the intent to begin with. It's absolutely proof that the vote was completely and utterly insecure though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:09PM (17 children)
IDK about your mail in ballot system. Here: I register with the elections dept. to get a mail-in ballot mailed to me - they know where they mailed the ballot and track it.
I get the ballot and sleeve which is traceable to my voter I.D. (and now my mailing address as well.)
I either mail it back in, or drop it off in person. Either way, there's a website that shows the progress of my individual ballot along the way: requested, mailed to me, received by polling authority, and counted.
If somebody "stole" my ballot, I'd definitely know because I'm trying to use it myself.
Are the voter rolls packed with dead voters? Not exactly packed, but there are tens of thousands of voters who died between the mail-out of the ballots and November 3rd 2020.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:00PM (8 children)
That's not the case in all states. Some mailed ballots to all registered voters, even if they didn't request one. Even where there are systems in place to check the status, how would you know to check if you never requested a ballot. On top of that, even the most secure mail-in systems still rely on each individual to check their ballot status, which isn't a reliable method of preventing widespread fraud.
Despite those other major concerns, my biggest gripe with mail-in ballots is that they don't protect against someone watching over your shoulder while you fill it in. Because you fill them in out outside of a voting booth, they open the possibility of direct vote buying and intimidation. There is absolutely no way to know how many people were paid for their vote or were intimidated by a family member into voting a certain way.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:16PM (4 children)
So, you're saying that fraudulent actors are intercepting these uncherished ballots and voting them in the names of the registered voters who do not care, on a widespread basis, and that nobody is complaining about it?
I agree that it can happen, that it does happen. What I disagree about is that it happens on a widespread basis without significant numbers of complaints and proof of it happening.
In order to swing this election to a different result, tens of thousands of fraudulent votes all in one direction would have to be counted. At least some small percentage of those would garner complaints, hundreds at a minimum. Out of 70 million stood up and counted Trump supporters, how many have come forth with anything resembling a credible complaint? Dozens, maybe, and none that felt strongly enough about their impulse to support their leader to stand up and continue with an investigation that might prove their complaints.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:18PM (3 children)
The problem is that it is nearly impossible to prove. At best you can compare envelope signatures (where they exist), which is not exactly definitive unless there's a really dumb mistake like signing the wrong name. On top of that, intercepting the returned ballots is undetectable to the voter. So only the ballot counters would be able to detect that, if they are even allowed to disqualify one based on a tampered envelope.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:40PM (2 children)
So, my general mistrust of the postal system led me to return my mail-in ballot in person - which is a great way to short-cut the line BTW.
Still, if I had mailed in the ballot, I'd be tracking it online the same way that I tracked it after dropping it in the ballot collection box.
If you mean the people who open that box might take my mail-in sleeve, scan it and mark it as received and counted online, and then replaced my ballot with another one which voted FOR the Republican Senators but AGAINST Trump - yeah, that might have happened here and there around the country, especially in the smaller polling locations where they might have broken protocol and let somebody scan the mail-ins alone, but certainly not widespread - and very doubtful that it happened in the bigger urban locations.
By the same token, just because your ballot is scanned by a machine in front of your eyes doesn't mean that the totals from that machine got transferred into the larger count for the precinct, happens here and there every election. What I have never heard a report of is somebody doing a replacement of large number of ballots and destroying the actual ones - certainly that's possible, but there are reasonably secure (less than perfect) measures in place that would expose that happening on a large scale.
Now, in small local elections, I did read a report of an independent journalist who questioned the local mayor's race (something like 1000 votes cast in total) and got the runaround when trying to count the ballots for himself, then got railroaded into the psychiatric health system when he persisted... if you're one of those people, bring a buddy or two and live-stream video of your endeavors to more friendly observers outside the jurisdiction at every opportunity, because small towns can do some scary shit and make it stick.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:47PM (1 child)
Taking a mail in ballot to the polling station in person is definitely better. It eliminates many of the points where your ballot is accessible to an unsupervised individual, but not everyone does that. A mail carrier on their route could easily note who has what political signs in their yards and grab ones he knows are for one side or the other and either deface the ballot to invalidate a vote or collect a large number from a public mailbox and do the same before sending them on. Although, the biggest problem with mail-ins is that there is no guarantee that an individual cannot be coerced into voting a certain way. No one can see how you mark your ballot in a voting booth, but there's no such assurance in your home. Anyone who has leverage on someone (employer, abusive spouse, parent, etc.) could use that to ensure that everyone in a household votes the way that person wants them to.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @09:27PM
I agree, however, mail tampering is extremely rare for a couple of reasons. One, it's just so not worth it, payoff vs penalty is virtually zero. Two, it's extremely labor intense - even sorting and pitching by probable vote is tough. There are documented cases of it happening this election to a few hundred ballots, but even those were only targeted by neighborhood, not individual.
I was saddened to learn that there are, indeed, some number of truly spineless Americans who will allow themselves to be intimidated into voting one way or another against what might be their better judgement. The first, and worst, I learned of was a poor worker for some fat cat who was belly aching about how if Obama won he was "going to have to close down his business and send all his workers home without even a severance check, the money just wasn't there and he can't pay them from nothing." So, the poor schlub told me he was voting for the other guy, because he just couldn't afford to be out of work. How that logic works I just don't know, extremely short term thinking IMO, but I believed he was sincere. Nevermind that fat cat's business thrived under Obama, he managed to convince at least this guy and his wife to vote against him.
I am sure there are thousands of forms of vote coercion, possibly millions of coerced votes nationwide. I'm not sure how mail-in ballots make it any worse if the coerced voter really believes they want to vote a certain way, they should still be able to do that - take their mail in ballot away from their influencer and fill it out in private - I haven't heard any widespread reports of spousal abuse based on voting disagreements. And, I suppose - like the electoral college itself - if you run the castle of your home as a tight political dictatorship, perhaps then you wield the mighty power of the ballot for all of the registered voters you influence. It may be illegal, but plenty of illegal things go on behind closed doors in abusive relationships. The answer isn't banning mail in voting, the answer is in providing security for people who are in abusive relationships whether domestically or working for a poverty wage.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:26PM (1 child)
I always voted in person, if I voted, until this November.
The biggest thing I like about mail-in ballots is that they give me the time to research candidates, particularly local small races, online before casting a vote - make a more informed choice rather than one that's biased mostly by the party, gender and ethnicity of the name on the paper.
Direct vote buying, like hand me your ballot and I'll fill it in and mail it for you? Or, let me watch you fill in your ballot and mail it otherwise I'll fire you from your crappy $9/hr job? I feel like that would be a huge story, and all over the press if it actually happened.
I had a company attempt to get me to sign a gag agreement after they laid me (and everybody else) off the week before Christmas 2012. I asked what would happen if I signed or didn't sign? Oh, nothing, our investors just want all "employees" to sign this - implying: sign this or you don't get re-hired. Not interested in continued abuse, I walked out and feel no compunction whatsoever about telling anybody who will listen all about it. I seriously doubt that any vote buying operation of any size (100 or more voters) would stay secret for even a day before somebody thought they'd rather trade their job for 15 minutes of fame and burn their ex boss in the process.
If you're in that kind of family, it's time to leave home. Also, looking at the kink of the two parties, which party do you think would be more inclined to tell all family members to think for themselves and vote their conscience vs. intimidation to follow suit?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @10:42PM
"The biggest thing I like about mail-in ballots is that they give me the time to research candidates, particularly local small races, online before casting a vote - make a more informed choice rather than one that's biased mostly by the party, gender and ethnicity of the name on the paper."
Voting in person on election day gives you even more time to research the candidates.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:09PM
Except none of the states where Trump is disputing the results did that [ncsl.org].
And most of the states that did mail out ballots to registered voters have done so for years.
And the ones that did so just for this year's election aren't having their results challenged (except Nevada, which won't make a difference one way or another WRT electoral college votes) at all.
Facts are just damned inconvenient aren't they? Getting in the way of a perfectly good conspiracy theory. The nerve!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:36AM (7 children)
Read up on CA. You can register as anyone whose last four of their SSN you have, by mail. You can then vote as them, by mail. They don't have to be a California resident and they don't even have to be alive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2020, @01:51AM (6 children)
And how many fraudsters have they found who are willing to do this and risk getting caught? Not saying they'd catch them all, but there will be some who get nailed - what's that number?
Back in the '80s the Florida voters registration card I was issued was made on a standard manual typewriter, ink ribbon on thickish paper preprinted with a two color background. I erased my birth year and drew it back in with a mechanical pencil - got me in a fair number of bars back in the day - had to forge it back to the truth to use as a 2nd source of I.D. for a trip to the Bahamas. I'd still feel about 4x as comfortable forging that kind of card (only card you needed to vote at the time) than I would doing anything through the mail, and none of it is worth the risk. You might get away with one or two, but what difference is that really going to make? Run an operation of thousands? they're gonna find you, and again it's still not enough to really make a difference in most elections.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:28AM (5 children)
What risk? There is pretty much zero risk. The Dems in CA wrote the law how it is precisely to make double damned sure of that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:35PM (4 children)
And, yet, nobody fucks with my mail - there's financial information and checks and all kinds of other things in there they could use to steal my identity and wreak all kinds of havoc in my life for potential gain in theirs, virtually zero risk snatching mail out of a roadside box, and how often does that happen outside of fictional movies? It happens, sure, but it's 1/100,000+ rare.
Both sides need to back the fuck down, starting with gerrymandering - Pubs have lost the house for so many years running they might as well just give up and let the districting make some sense again. But concede isn't in the vocabulary, is it?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:34PM (3 children)
I'm not talking about snatching mail. I'm talking about registering fraudulent voters at PO boxes, checking those PO boxes exactly once to get the ballots, and disappearing without a trace until the next election. It's dirt simple to do for CA, for example.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:52PM (2 children)
Are you in CA? For the good of the nation, faith in our election system, etc. I suggest you do what I outlined above: find a politically/elections oriented lawyer, engage with him and several judges to "test the system" and do just what you proposed - attempt to register 100 fraudulent voters at PO boxes and get the ballots for the 2022 congressional elections. Don't mail them in to vote them, just obtain the ballots and have the lawyer document the process and show how you have done it. See if you can avoid getting caught until January 4 2023 when the congresscritters who would have been affected by your fraudulent ballots are seated in office. Maybe an even better test of the system would be to vote for the darkest horse on the ticket, just to show you can really get away with it.
Seems to me that if it were do-able, even just in CA, with a population of 40 million there should be more than one "investigative journalist" who would have blown the lid off this thing with solid evidence BEFORE steal-gate hit Trump in the face.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 23 2020, @12:22PM (1 child)
What's an investigative journalist?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 23 2020, @06:58PM
A dying breed of people who go find out actual shit, document it to a reasonable level of proof, and publish it for fame and prizes. Much easier to listen to your audience, echo back what they want to hear and collect advertising revenue: capitalism triumphing again.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:16PM (20 children)
My confidence in the election process is far lower than ever.
The way the voting system is set up it is exceptionally difficult to prove fraud. Combine that with people who are actively working to obscure any fraud that falls in their favor and how would you expect it to be found? On top of that, there are legal methods of vote manipulation like redistricting and getting 3rd parties on/off of ballots strategically. And everything that has gone on in the courts, exposing some of the count practices has shown we haven't learned anything from the 2000 debacle. Sure there are no hanging chads this time, but the lack of transparency with the electronic voting machines more than makes up for that.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:43PM (17 children)
Really? Fake people registered to vote, how is that hard to prove?
Person votes twice - how many times has that been shown? It would be very hard to refute if you have done it.
Person has their vote "stolen" by somebody else intercepting their ballot in the mail before they get it and votes under their name, how many complaints of this happening have been shown as even slightly credible?
Ballot intercepted in the mail-in process and changed - would leave physical evidence, or be costly/labor intensive to make the change indetectable, and some percentage would be detected. How many of these?
Poll workers stuffing ballot boxes, maybe in a "solid color" county - but independent observers have been unable to produce a single shred of evidence of this.
I have no doubt that small numbers of all of the above have happened, but nothing approaching even 0.01% of the total vote. If it were large scale (over 1000 votes) there would be at least 1% of cases where people slipped up enough to get caught with at least semi-credible proof.
The main type of election influence/fraud I have seen reported is mass dumping of ballots, particularly from areas where the votes are expected to be biased one way or the other. This has been reported a few times on mail carriers, and a couple of counties "accidentally" forgot to add batches of votes to their totals, though these are getting exposed (proven) in the recounts, and still don't amount to 0.01% influence of the total vote.
Voter suppression tactics, up through and including sabotage of the mail system, would seem to have more influence. Gerrymandering definitely has more influence, but I suppose those are legal and therefore should be quietly submitted to?
As I said elsewhere - in 2000 it felt like dirty pool probably made the difference and got Bush in, but the result was very close to a tie. 2020 doesn't feel anywhere near tie territory, and the small quantities of dirty pool that has been exposed so far would seem to be biased mostly in Trump's favor. I certainly have faith that they would come forth with any hard evidence they have, but so far 70 million supporters don't seem to have anything solid at all.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:00PM (3 children)
Exceptionally hard to prove unless you do complete audits of the voter registration lists before every election.
People who vote more than once don't use their own name the second time.
How would you know if it's credible or not? You would have to prove a negative (having not received a ballot) to have a strong case. Either that or the voter would have to make a formal complaint and the person committing the fraud would have to simultaneously make a really dumb mistake like signing the wrong name on the envelope. If any of these cases are provable, it would imply a large number of attempts were made successfully.
Do you know the rules for observers and what they are really allowed to see? In PA, that they are in the same room where the count is happening (regardless of whether they are close enough to see anything) is sufficient to satisfy the requirements per the state supreme court. Many other states have similar issues and even when the observers observe something, it isn't acted upon.
Of course not. We should put a stop to manipulation of voting districts, but that's not the only legal way to subvert an election. There was an openly stated objective by the Democratic party to get Green party candidates off the ballots in swing states. That appears to have had a significant influence in the outcomes there and shouldn't have been legal either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @01:34AM
In my state of residence (New Mexico), voter registration lists are available at any time for a fee. Presumably you can "audit" as much as you like, any time you like.
I'm pretty sure that if I requested a ballot and did not get it, I would know in pretty short order. How many times has this actually happened?
Could you quantify "significant influence"? Do you know of any instance in which this was likely to have affected the outcome of the election?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2020, @02:04AM (1 child)
Financial processing software code monkeys don't really know what an audit is, do they? Complete audit is an oxymoron. An audit is a representative sampling of a much larger population, enough to find significant problems. 2 million registered voters in Orange County, CA? A proper audit sample of 2,000 should be enough to detect any significant fraud.
Apparently that depends on which candidate they believe in: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/10/29/trump-supporter-charged-with-voting-twice-in-iowa/ [washingtonpost.com] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/us/politics/trump-people-vote-twice.html [nytimes.com] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/georgia-voter-fraud-jail-time-mail-ballot-trump-b420755.html [independent.co.uk]
Bullshit. My ballot goes missing, then turns up in the tracker as counted when I didn't get it? Channel 10 news here I come, and a squad of auditors checks the signature, postmark, delivery address, payment method used for the P.O. Box (if the fraudster is even that bright), security footage from the post office boxes, etc. And even if the perp gets away, that shit is all over the world news.
So with the Trump brigade in the room you're suggesting that the poll workers are pulling fake ballots out of their asses to stuff the boxes with? or what exactly?
So, dirty pool is only allowed on one side of the aisle? Openly stated and illegal are very different things, and the Green party candidates - and people who influenced the balloting process - may have decided that in this particular election their own interests were best served by retiring early, you know like the gaggle of Republitard Presidential hopefuls didn't in 2016?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Friday November 20 2020, @05:08AM
Who is this response targeted at? I'm not a coder at all really. I may have misused the term, but the idea was there that you need to completely purge the voter rolls of ineligible voters before the election to effectively catch voter fraud. Otherwise, their ballot goes into the pile with the rest and even if you later determine that fraud occurred, you can't take back that vote because you can't prove what the vote was. So, no a sample is not sufficient. The voter registration lists need to contain only legally eligible voters.
Nope, just another non-credible complaint. You must be another one of those Trump supporters trying to undermine confidence in the election. You'd probably even go so far as to file a provisional ballot in an attempt to vote twice.
How about just being more stringent/lenient on the signature checks based on zip code? You're fairly creative. I'm sure you could think of several other ways to influence the count that isn't easily visible from that distance if you thought about it for a minute.
Where did I say it was okay for either side?
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:41AM (12 children)
Go volunteer to work a poll next time. See if you can find a way to tell a fraudulent vote from a perfectly legitimate one during the counting phase or the recount phase.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2020, @02:07AM (2 children)
The ballots coming out of the underwear of the observers, they smell fishy to me.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:29AM (1 child)
Man, I dunno what kind of fish you fish for but you need to pick a new species.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:58PM
It has more to do with the age and how it was stored than the species.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2020, @02:22AM (8 children)
That's an excellent suggestion for every single idiot alleging fraud in this election. First: shut up until you put up and learn something about the processes of your actual election authorities. Second: if you think you can "white hat hack" the system with massive fraud, I encourage you to register your intent with a lawyer and several judges in multiple jurisdictions before trying to perpetrate your hack and see how far you get before you are caught.
With anything less than a 30% penetration of the applicable volunteer workforce, I predict exposure and arrest before you pass even 0.1% of the state vote total in any federal level elections. It's a lot like bitcoin - if the system is overwhelmed with corruption, yeah, fraud can happen and go undetected for a short time. Unlike bitcoin, the law allows for capture and arrest after the hack is done.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:34AM (7 children)
Get your reading glasses. I'm not alleging fraud. It's an absolute certainty there was fraud but I have no idea how much. I'm saying our election system is either crafted the way it is to facilitate rather than deter fraud or the motherfuckers in charge of setting it up should be neutered for extraordinary levels of incompetence and fired. Out of a cannon.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:48PM (6 children)
I agree there is fraud, I have a pretty good idea that it's in the noise, far less than 0.1% of the vote totals. The 2000 election might have been decided by the fraud noise in Florida, and that's a shame. What's more of a shame is that there is such a difference in outcome between one choice and the other, I'd much prefer a system like March madness where we downselect multiple rounds to an optimal representative, rather than a single sudden death match between opposing sides. This election is nowhere near as close as 2000. If the trumpettes can't unbunch their panties by January 20th and accept that maybe we will get some more positive motion in election trustworthiness. I do think we have made clear positive progress compared to 20 years ago.
It's not facilitating fraud, it is facilitating access. Same kind of issues as computer security. I think they should work toward increased transparency - which is impossible at some point due to secrecy of the ballot, but maybe my vote can be tallied on one side and my secret hash code can be published on a blockchain where I can check to see that my vote was tallied but nobody else can read what my vote was (except the quantum cryptography lab...) IDK, but trust in the system should be increased wherever possible. You got any brilliant suggestions?
Sure, the beatings will continue until morale improves - that always works so well. Also, jockeying for advantage like sabotage of the postal system, shutdown of polling locations, etc. is negative progress, IMO.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:51PM (5 children)
The problem is, that is entirely a faith-based opinion. There is, by design, no way at all to tell a fraudulent ballot from a real one once they're all in a pile.
No, it's not about access. There is zero excuse for not demanding proof that someone is who they say they are, entitled to vote, and alive before you allow them a vote. And yet Dem states do their dead level best to remove all of the above, ensuring that there is no possible way to verify that a registration was legitimate after the fact.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:59PM (4 children)
Taking sides now, the problem with Trump supporters is they have some kind of magical faith that following the unsubstantiated- often clearly false -spew that he Tweets is what they NEED for a better life.
It's time to get your blinders cleaned. Plenty of the actions taken leading up to November 3 2020 were all about restricting access for predominantly DEM voting areas and demographics. These were simple fact based reports of concrete actions undeniably taken, unlike the fairy tale boogeymen of fake voters and ginned up "affidavits" alleging cheating.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 23 2020, @12:29PM (3 children)
You really going to point and say how bad the other guy is when I point out an indisputable problem in your own house? That's bullshit pundit nonsense and you know it. And demanding a photo ID is hardly limiting access. Unless, do you think black folks are somehow incapable of scraping up a few bucks once every several years and standing in a line at the DMV like those fundamentally superior but oppressive white folks?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 23 2020, @07:08PM (2 children)
I don't live in Cali, dude. Florida cleaned house after 2000, we actually have the voting thing pretty well nailed now, IMO.
Having a single location [texastribune.org] for drop boxes in counties with populations in excess of 5 million people, that's limiting access.
Single polling places with long lines open for a single day is limiting access [americanprogress.org].
Demand your photo I.D. to register, verify the fuck out of it - it's not hard with the "gold star" documentation requirements for travel these days. And, then, shut the fuck up about how mail-ins are "a cheat, a steal, a lib-dem-flim-flam and we all know it" without providing any proof of the same.
What's even better than the poor us whining is the lame ass [lawandcrime.com] mockeries of proof [fastcompany.com] that are being submitted, apparently as the best available evidence of fraud in the elections. If this is what you all want to pass for legal proof going forward, let's see how businesses fare when consumers start piling bullshit lawsuits at their doorstep expecting equal treatment in the courts as politicians.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 24 2020, @02:47PM (1 child)
Drop boxes? There shouldn't be drop boxes to begin with. That's just asking for trouble. If for no other reason than you can drop things other than ballots in them. Like, say, half a gallon of black ink or a lit sparkler.
As for long lines, I guess the DMV limits access too then. Yet everyone who actually wants a driver's license or state ID seems to have no problem actually getting one. If you want more polling places, make more polling places. Our town has several when we could get by just fine with only one; they're never even slightly busy except when a family all comes up to vote at the same time. Your town is your business.
You don't need proof of misdeeds to say that misdeeds are not just possible but dead simple and completely unaccountable. By design. And that's what I've been saying. I don't give a rat's ass what Trump and co have been saying, because I don't give a rat's ass about Trump and co. I do give a rat's ass that my vote and yours don't get nullified by a dead, illegal, imaginary felon though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 24 2020, @03:19PM
So there should be no mail-in option whatsoever, because you believe the election workers are an excellent judge of false/true identity and you implicitly trust them to make that call? All the drop box does is cut out the postal service, which has shown itself to be less than 100% reliable in the recent election. Better security for the voters, also much easier to detect if somebody is trying to "stuff" 1000 ballots than if they show up in postal boxes all over town.
Have you ever even been to a polling place? Any polling place I have been to is attended, things going into the drop box are closely observed by poll workers, when there are no attendants, access to the drop box is not available.
Fuck yes it does, and having paid that price with three forms of validated I.D. to get the little gold star on the State issued photo I.D. card, that I.D. card should carry some weight.
We have wanted State IDs for our 17 & 19 year olds since they turned 16, and we don't have them yet. Life, one thing after another, COVID most recently, has conspired to take away our RoundTuits such that State IDs just haven't materialized for them yet. That's with unlimited opportunity for scheduling any day of the year. Even in Florida the voting window is only open for a few weeks per election.
That's not in the control of the people voting, that's in control of the minority elected politicians who are desperately clinging to power any way they can, including limiting access to the polls.
What system of law permits suing for theoretical damages, instead of actual damages? The one in your head?
Just like one side can't get more polling places by saying they need more polling places, the other side shouldn't be able to use imaginary problems to restrict real access.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:48PM (1 child)
What lack of transparency? Almost every state has either paper ballots (whether cast in person or by mail) or a voter-verified paper trail at the polling place.
How much more transparent can you be? Well, I guess the states that *don't* have a paper trail [ballotpedia.org] (all of which went for Trump except New Jersey) could (and should) implement a paper trail.
All this bullshit about "Dominion" software changing votes is ridiculous. Not only are all the states where fraud has been claimed (without actual evidence) all have paper trails and the software is just tabulating the *paper* ballots, which can be (and generally are) audited in pretty much every election gives the lie to this.
What's more, *widespread* voter fraud is exceedingly difficult to do, given the decentralized nature of our election systems. Note that I say systems (plural), as each *county* runs their own elections. That's tens of thousands of people from *all* parties that are on the 3000+ (3,141 to be exact -- one for each county) *different* ballots across the nation looking at the ballots while they are cast and counted -- in the counties where they are cast.
And the counting process is similarly diverse across those 3000+ counties.
Sure. There are always a few instances of voter fraud in every election. But nowhere near enough to actually affect the outcome. The Heritage Foundation's Voter Fraud database [heritage.org] bears this out too.
Over the past *20 years* there have been hundreds of documented cases of voter fraud. Which might seem like a lot, but remember there are usually ~140-160 *million* votes cast in presidential election years and ~80-100 million in non-presidential election years. That's hundreds of cases of fraud vs. more than a *billion* (with a 'b') votes.
And the Heritage Foundation isn't exactly carrying water for the Democratic Party.
So who are you going to believe? Trump and his enablers or your lying eyes?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:52PM
Rule #1
Any flimsy accusation made by a Republican is projection. They are cheating so they accuse their opponents to try and keep the focus off of themselves.
Is slinches a shill? Or just a victim of the propaganda?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:16PM (3 children)
You're brainwashed if you don't think they can switch 100's of thousands of votes with the machines, or add them with fraudulent mail in ballots. If you think the scum that support Biden and that disgusting Camel aren't perfectly willing to cheat, you're stupid. If you think blacks counting votes are to be trusted, you're retarded. Those stupid motherfuckers think their dumb, useless sons should be able to rob your house without getting in trouble or shot for it, b/c of slavery and "racism". They think stealing anything from Whitey is just reparations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:29PM (2 children)
You have become dangerously unhinged.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @07:15PM (1 child)
Go look at the Ahmaud Arbery case. They are protesting in the streets like he's an innocent. Also, i was told first hand by blacks that kick-dooring, tying and pistol whipping old, "rich" white people is OK, b/c of slavery. Of course, not all blacks think this way, but the number is much higher than gullible, brainwashed Whitey realizes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 21 2020, @08:40AM
People say a lot of stuff, now how many old rich white guys do you know that have been victims of home invasion and assault?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday November 19 2020, @10:00PM (4 children)
and if there were evidence, serious evidence of fraud, would you put Giuliani (sp?) in charge of your court cases?
Man...i'd get someone GOOD!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @10:12PM (1 child)
Goolyanny ain't good for you? You got someone better maybe?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday November 19 2020, @10:55PM
Teh poo i just had. ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @12:17PM (1 child)
He did. They got immediately doxed, threatened, and pressured away from the case courtesy of the "Lincoln Project".
This is a major problem that people are ignoring because they like the outcome. The increasingly organized nature of groups working to intimidate and harm those who do not toe their political line is what will increasingly give way to fascism. And once you reach a certain point of inertia, it becomes impossible to turn back the clock.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday November 20 2020, @01:07PM
Wait, wait, wait.... Lawyers, yeah? Lawyers who are threatened and back down instead of fighting back and SUING? They are being threatened and intimidated and THEY BACKED DOWN? Really? They don't just take people to court and sue anymore?
Are they suing? Why would they back down if Trump's case was credible? Wow. Not very good lawyers.... about as good as my poo.
AND, you can seriously look at the harm Trump is doing and condone it? Seriously... a guy who has peaceful protesters pepper-sprayed JUST FOR A PHOTO OP isn't a Fascist?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:44PM
At least where I live, in order to vote by mail (and we did consider it), we would have to request the ballots, by mail. Sent to our address. Then we would return them. They would receive them through the mail, in a signed envelope, check that we really are on the voter roles, and had not yet voted, and then count them.
I don't see how any kind of massive fraud could happen unless it happened within the postal system. And given the nature of postal inspectors, this seems unlikely. The post office will spend any amount of money and investigation to track down single instances of mail fraud or mail tampering. Even anomalous things in a post office can trigger an investigation that usually doesn't last long. I have a friend (retired) who worked his whole life in the post office in many different roles.
If the vote receiving department were to start receiving multiple ballots purportedly from the same voters, this would be highly suspect. Especially if it happened for multiple voters. (eg, someone sent in a ballot, allegedly from me, without my knowledge, but I sent one in also)
(We voted in person a couple weeks early.) If someone were to send in ballots in our names, and we had already, or later vote in person, they are going to know that we had already voted and something is wrong. If this happens on a massive scale, it is big news. Even if it happened on a small scale (less than a few hundred fraudulent ballots) this is big news.
There is ALWAYS errors and some fraud. But not in numbers big enough to affect the overall result.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:58PM
Given the higher amount of mail in votes I'd say it's more likely to be less secure than at least one of the the previous elections in American history.